Today is the last day of summer vacation (for my town, anyway). It seems like just yesterday I was lamenting the end of the school year and worrying about how I was going to fill the hours and hours stretching ahead of me. And yet, in a flash, the summer is gone. While parents are humming the holiday tune “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, children are humming “It’s The End of the World as We Know It.”
Now is the time when we ask ourselves, “Did we do enough over vacation?” Did we go to the beach, sleep late, watch movies, camp and ride our bikes enough? Did we take enough day trips and weekend trips? Did we see enough family members (Or in some cases, too many?) Did we grill enough burgers, drink enough margaritas and swim in our pool (or our neighbor’s pool, or our friend’s pool) enough?
The answer is yes, yes and yes. We had hot days (too many), cool nights (too few), the occasional passing thunderstorm (not nearly enough of those) and every type of weather in between.
I have mixed feelings about the end of summer. Once school begins, I have more time to myself. However, the time when the kids are home will be filled with cracking the whip over homework, chauffeuring them to after school activities and mediating fights.
There are many things that I will miss about summer: letting my kids stay up late and sleeping in the next morning; surprising them with day trips to unexpected places; no homework; spending time with friends; stopping for ice cream on our way home from the beach; crowding around together on a rainy day and watching a “Pawn Stars” marathon on television.
But there are an equal number of things I will not miss about summer: the phrase “what are we doing today?”; fighting over whose turn it is to play the Wii, use the computer or choose the television program; listening to a constant refrain of “He touched/punched/kicked/breathed-on me”; trying to pry my kids away from the aforementioned Wii, computer and television; hot days that make you want to camp out in the freezer section of the Hilltop Butcher Shop; and motorcycles that zoom past my open bedroom window at all hours of the day and night.
Looking back I feel it has been a satisfying summer for our family. We celebrated two milestone birthdays with family and friends. We went to the beach a number of times and spent many afternoons lazing at a friend’s pool. We reconnected with old friends from work, college and elementary school. We read several good books and watched way too many hours of television. We saw good movies and bad movies. We took our annual trip to Canobie Lake Park and toured Castle Island for the first time. We cheered at the Brockton Rox and stood in awe at the Westfield Air Show. We lost one appendix but gained a set of braces.
Best of all, we spent approximately 1,700 hours together and still love and respect each other. So fire up the grill, pour one last margarita and think back to all the things you did this summer. Was it enough? Did you fill it with as many adventures and memories as you had hoped?
I’m willing to bet that you did.
